From Fabric to Fiber: A Study on the Use of Cotton Textile Waste in Papermaking

Currently, recycling fibrous materials has become a key challenge in sustainable waste management. The presented research investigates the potential use of waste cotton fibers from the textile industry as an additive to kraft pulp used in paper production. According to the requirements of modern papermaking, single- and three-ply paper structures were made with various quantities of waste cotton fibers. Our research aimed to examine the properties of the obtained papers to demonstrate their potential applications in areas where paper is commonly used. Microscopic analysis confirmed that refining caused the fibers to become more fibrillated, which increased their papermaking potential. The highest strength parameters, excluding tear resistance, were found for a three-ply structure made from unbleached softwood kraft pulp (UBSK) only. The second strongest paper was a three-ply paper containing 16% waste cotton fibers (CTN). In this variant, the outer layers were made from UBSK pulp and the middle layer from a mixture of CTN and UBSK pulps refined together. The highest tear resistance was achieved with a single-ply paper containing 16% waste cotton fibers refined with UBSK pulp. The results also indicate that there is no single, universal solution for multi-ply paper production that would improve all strength parameters.